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B’Tselem, a human rights group, said, “Israel … has made Gaza a huge prison, yet forbids the prisoners even to protest against this, on pain of death.”

In December 1948, the New York Times published a letter by 27 American Jewish intellectuals, including Albert Einstein and Hannah Arendt, warning of “the dangers to Israel” posed by the far-right Freedom Party (Herut). The letter described how the party’s militia had killed “most of the inhabitants—240 men, women and children” of the Arab village of Deir Yassin, except for a few that were kept “alive to parade as captives through the streets of Jerusalem.” The signatories denounced Herut leader Menachem Begin and urged “all concerned not to support this latest manifestation of fascism.”

In 1973, Herut merged with other parties to form Likud, the party now chaired by current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu, who governs in coalition with other right-wing parties, has proven every bit as violent as the Herut thugs of yesteryear.

This year, from March 30 to May 15, tens of thousands of Palestinians demonstrated at the barbed wire fence that surrounds Gaza to protest the Israeli blockade, the moving of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, and their confinement to the crowded and immiserated Gaza Strip.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) responded by massacring a total of 112 demonstrators (including 13 children). On March 31, after snipers killed 15 protesters, the IDF bragged in a tweet: “Everything was accurate and measured, and we know where every bullet landed.” Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said the IDF soldiers “deserve a medal.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the IDF for allowing Israelis to enjoy Passover observances “peacefully.”

Not everyone in Israel was at peace. B’Tselem, a human rights group, said, “Israel … has made Gaza a huge prison, yet forbids the prisoners even to protest against this, on pain of death.”

Noting that “lethal force is banned by international law except to meet an imminent threat to life,” Human Rights Watch called for a formal investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which was created by the United Nations in 2002 (but runs independently from it).

Since 2015, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, has been conducting a “preliminary examination” of the 2014 Gaza War, which killed 2,251 Palestinians (including 1,462 civilians) and 73 Israelis (including 6 civilians). On April 8, she warned that “any new alleged crime committed in the context of the situation in Palestine may be subjected to my office’s scrutiny.”

On May 18, the U.N. Human Rights Council voted to set up a commission of inquiry to examine Israel’s use of force, 29 to 2 (the United States and Australia) with 14 abstentions (including Britain, Germany and Japan). Because the United States has veto power on the Security Council, any recommendation is unlikely to move forward.

As the Likudniks see it, the only thing Israel has done wrong in Gaza is lose the public relations war. Speaking at a briefing for the Jewish Federations of North America, IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said, “The ‘winning picture’ overwhelmingly, by a knockout, unfortunately, have been the graphics from the Palestinian side. The amount of casualties has done us a tremendous disservice, unfortunately, and it has been very difficult to tell our story.”

That wouldn’t surprise Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt, Seymour Melman and the others who signed that letter to the New York Times 70 years ago. The authors were prophetic: “It is in its actions that the terrorist party betrays its real character; from its past actions we can judge what it may be expected to do in the future.”

That future is now.

It’s time for ICC Chief Prosecutor Bensouda to move the proceedings from the court of public opinion, where Israel’s leaders are currently being tried, to a more proper venue: The Hague.

Boycott ALL Israeli goods, services and institutions until Israeli racism, terrorism, colonialism, mass murder, ethnic cleansing and apartheid are ended and the human rights of the Palestinian refugees are honored.

Posted by Wesley Stubbs Sandel on 2018-06-16 10:32:25

This great quote at the end sums it all up so well: “It is in its actions that the terrorist party betrays its real character; from its past actions we can judge what it may be expected to do in the future.” The israelis are the true terrorists then and now....

Posted by YoungAmerican on 2018-06-14 17:03:10

Great bit of journalism Joel...thanks for keeping it real! BOYCOTT DIVEST SANCTION

Posted by YoungAmerican on 2018-06-14 17:00:54

I can see from some of the comments I've read that, U.S. and Israeli propaganda is quite effective. Do Americans even know where the people of Gaza came from? It is unquestionably the world's largest outdoor prison and Israel controls everything that goes into Gaza or out of it. As the docs with Docs without borders will tell you, many die due to a lack of normal supplies we take for granted here like sterile medical supplies. Try this on. Had the state of Rhode Island became the state of Israel in 1948 as a result of UN actions, and it's citizens were forcibly removed to say, Providence and a few counties outside it, with Israel deciding what comes into that port or any and all checkpoints otherwise, just how do you think those folks would have reacted and how would they react today? After all, it's not like a Palestinian can vote in an Israeli election and were Rhode Island Israel, it's citizens couldn't vote in any election other than the ones involving former U.S. citizens. Walk in someone else's shoes for a while and see how that fits.

Posted by William Johnson on 2018-06-09 10:16:42

Hamas and all the other Palestinian resistance organizations are the moral equivalent to the French Resistance and the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Posted by Wesley Stubbs Sandel on 2018-06-07 12:21:59

Israel is the only state in the world that meets every one of the criteria in the legal definition of apartheid, including a miscegenation law and state-supported, violent anti-miscegenation organizations.

Israel has been engaged in the mass murder of Palestinian children for decades, having murdered more than 2000 Palestinian children in the last fifteen years alone, most killed by Israelis soldiers with sniper rifles.

Israel is in direct and continual violation of dozens of international laws, including over 600,000 Jews from everywhere except Palestine living in state-built, Jews-only illegal settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Israel has been in violation of the UN charter it signed in 1948 since 1948 when it conducted it's first ethnic cleansing campaign, forcing 750,000 defenseless, Christian and Muslim Palestinian fathers, mothers and children from their homes at gunpoint, massacring entire villages, raping women, throwing bombs into occupied Palestinian homes, executing anyone who couldn't or wouldn't flee and then systematically destroying over 400 Palestinian towns and villages.

There are over five million registered Christian and Muslim Palestinian refugees from Israeli racist terror and ethnic cleansing campaigns.

Posted by Wesley Stubbs Sandel on 2018-06-07 12:21:04

When is Hamas going to be taken to the Hague? They've spent the last 11 years (of their 4-year elected term) killing off their political opponents and civilians who protest against them. Hamas uses children to dig their tunnels and about 165 have already died that way. Hamas launches rockets and mortars over the border into Israel (often from schools and mosques) and then runs away, leaving civilians to bear the brunt of retaliation.

I am not condoning the shooting of unarmed protesters. But I have one question: What would the U.S. do if 40,000 Mexicans (some with rifles) massed at a border fence in Texas, threw rocks, burned tires, launched firebombs, and cut through the fence?

Posted by sharonsj on 2018-06-06 15:53:50

Yeah! Bringing kids to the area of action is so strategic but morally wrong. Knowing that the IDF will react and walking towards that threat is so dumb but will evoke opinions. In my view, the only emotion is just that - dumb!

In the Mid Eastern values, the Grandpa's Turkey (see From Beirut to Jerusalem) is very relevant.

How is what we saw at the Israeli border peaceful protest. Throw fire bombs and bring IDEs at me and I'd respond the same. Gaza was getting better before the Palestinians in Gaza elected a terrorist group as their government. Even Egypt closed their border and blew up the terrorist tunnels. You socialist believe it is always everyone elses fault. Fact is it is Hamas fault. Their charter calls for the complete destruction if Israel and you believe they could have open borders....PLEASE.

Posted by Mattbr1234 on 2018-06-05 16:04:13

Joseph Bleifuss has written a rather loosely reasoned little bunch of glop here and it's somewhat noisome